Clinton on Leno

Hillary Clinton got the first big boost out of her appearance on the Tonight show with Jay Leno before she even opened her mouth: the in-show band played her on with the theme from Rocky, which she’s taken on as her talisman as she’s campaigned in Pennsylvania.

The video, and a few thoughts, after the jump:

[I can’t get the embed feature on the Tonight show’s own website to work: if it’s fixed, or if the clip is added to Hulu quickly, I’ll try to update to that.]

Clinton’s joke about her escaping-snipers-with-Sinbad gaffe (“I was worried I wasn’t going to make it, I was pinned down by sniper fire”) worked well, I thought. She might not have wanted to volunteer the less-effective actual serious explanation, however (“This has been such a mismatch of words and actions… I obviously just had a lapse”), although I suppose even Leno would have followed up with a question about it had she not.

Otherwise, she handled the expectedly easygoing interview well, ranging from talking about her ability to sleep on a plane to engaging Jay on the need to train workers in trades like plumbing and mechanics, “good jobs that can’t be outsourced.”

Oh, and the bit where she says, “Death and Sex 101… I can’t talk about that!”? If you look really closely, you can actually see the Bill Clinton joke from 1998 that Jay is biting back in his mouth.